Cracking open an Elevation Apis IV after a year (and more)

If you still have a few bottles of the first beer that Elevation Beer Co. bottled, the Apis IV Quad, you should know that the beer is tasting absolutely splendid. I hesitate to say to open your last bottle right this second, because in the next couple months Elevation will release the 2013 Apis IV... Read More

If you still have a few bottles of the first beer that Elevation Beer Co. bottled, the Apis IV Quad, you should know that the beer is tasting absolutely splendid. I hesitate to say to open your last bottle right this second, because in the next couple months Elevation will release the 2013 Apis IV and you might want to wait till then.

The transformation of the beer in the last year is pretty amazing. I mean we loved the beer when it first came out a year ago. It also recently won a bronze medal in the Belgian Quadrupel Category at the Open Beer Championship. Gone are some of the chocolate characteristics and instead there’s a good deal more of honey, figs, and plum with a candy backdrop and a good spicy yeast profile. And dark cherry! There’s a lot of wonderful cherry aroma and flavor in there now that I don’t remember before. The beer was subtle and nuanced before, now a lot of the flavors are emerging and standing out clearer.

So, you can look forward to that in the near future. Also, Elevation just released some news about some summer seasonals that they will release in bottles. Engel Weisse is a Berliner Weisse beer that clocks in at just 4% abv and was fermented in oak barrels. Jonathan Shikes over at Westword just wrote up a really interesting article about how this beer comes close to not being able to be sold in Colorado liquor stores due to the low abv. The brewery had originally produced the beer at 3.4% but now will sell that beer only it’s taproom.

Also be on the look out for the Wild Flowers Imperial Saison, a 7.8% saison with some classic peppery, clove, and lemon character.

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Now I wish I had saved a bottle. Went through 2 of those bottles early on after it came out. I think there still might be a bottle of that at my local liquor store. Will have to check. Good to know the brew ages well.

I stopped in at Elevation this past weekend. They had a barrel aged Apis IV on tap that was phenomenal. That Wild Flowers saison you mentioned is pretty darn good too. I find that I really enjoy their bigger beers (typically from their ‘Black’ and ‘Double Black’ series, an homage to ski slope difficulties). They had a really killer Imperial IPA in the tap room as well, but the name escapes me at the moment.